Pesticides linked to Parkinson's

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-parkinsonsapr20,0,594513.storyPesticides linked to Parkinson's, UCLA researchers findResearch: Exposure can raise risk of developing disorderApril 20, 2009Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have provided strong new evidence linking at least some cases of Parkinson's disease to exposure to pesticides. Researchers have suspected for some time that pesticides may cause the neurodegenerative disorder, and experiments in animals have shown that the chemicals, particularly the fungicide maneb and the herbicide paraquat, can cause Parkinson's-like symptoms in animals. But proving it in humans has been difficult because of problems in assessing exposure to the agents. Parkinson's is a disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer's motor skills, speech and other functions. It is not fatal of itself, but complications often are. As many as 180 of every 100,000 Americans develop it. To explore a potential connection to pesticides, epidemiologist Beate Ritz of UCLA and her graduate student Sadie Costello, now at the University of California, Berkeley, studied public records of pesticide applications in California's Central Valley from 1974 to 1999. Every application of pesticides to crops must be registered with the state. Working with Myles Cockburn of the University of Southern California, they developed a tool to estimate pesticide exposure in areas immediately adjacent to the fields. They then identified 368 longtime residents who lived within 500 yards of fields where the chemicals had been sprayed and compared them with 341 carefully matched controls who did not live near the fields.They reported in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology that people who lived next to fields where maneb or paraquat had been sprayed were, on average, about 75 percent more likely to develop the disease. In most cases, the exposure occurred years before onset of the disease. =====In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.